Lightness, equivalent backgrounds, and anchoring

Observers compared two center/surround configurations haploscopically. One configuration consisted of a standard surface surrounded by two, three, or four surfaces, each with a different luminance. The other configuration consisted of a comparison surface surrounded by a single annulus that varied in luminance. Center surfaces always had the same luminance but only appeared to have the same lightness with certain annuli (equivalent backgrounds). For most displays, the luminance needed to obtain an equivalent background was close to the highest luminance in the standard surround configuration. Models based on the space-average luminance or the space-average contrast of the standard surround configuration yielded poorer fits. Implications for computational models of lightness and for candidate solutions to the anchoring problem are discussed.     

The role of the tutor in a college of further education: A comparison of skills used by personal tutors and by student counsellors when working with students in distress

The personal counselling role of the college tutor is compared with the work of the trained student counsellor. A survey questionnaire measuring tutors' perceptions of their role, and identifying skills used in its execution, was administered to a sample of tutors in a college of further education. Another version of the questionnaire was administered to a sample of student counsellors to measure commonly-used skills. It was found that a lot of role confusion exists, that untrained tutors use a smaller range of skills than counsellors, and that they tend more towards advice-giving and directive techniques. They feel unprepared and unsupported in their counselling role.     

Children's differentiation between beliefs about matters of fact and matters of opinion

Two experiments investigated children's implicit and explicit differentiation between beliefs about matters of fact and matters of opinion. In Experiment 1, 8- to 9-year-olds' (n = 88) explicit understanding of the subjectivity of opinions was found to be limited, but their conformity to others' judgments on a matter of opinion was considerably lower than their conformity to others' views regarding an ambiguous fact. In Experiment 2, children aged 6, 8, or 10 years (n = 81) were asked to make judgments either about ambiguous matters of fact or about matters of opinion and then heard an opposing judgment from an expert. All age groups conformed to the opposing judgments on factual matters more than they did to the experts' views on matters of opinion. However, only the oldest children explicitly recognized that opinions are subjective and cannot be "wrong." Implications of these results for models of children's reasoning about epistemic states are discussed.     

The white-eared opossum failed to understand the parallel strings task: studying a primitive mammal under natural conditions

Animal Cognition - The present study aimed to investigate if the white-eared opossum under natural conditions is capable of spontaneously solving the parallel string task. The experimental study...     

Intuitionistic Non-normal Modal Logics: A General Framework

Journal of Philosophical Logic - We define a family of intuitionistic non-normal modal logics; they can be seen as intuitionistic counterparts of classical ones. We first consider monomodal logics,...     

The effectiveness of feedback in multiple-cue probability learning

How effective are different types of feedback in helping us to learn multiple contingencies? This article attempts to resolve a paradox whereby, in comparison to simple outcome feedback, additional feedback either fails to enhance or is actually detrimental to performance in nonmetric multiple-cue probability learning (MCPL), while in contrast the majority of studies of metric MCPL reveal improvements at least with some forms of feedback. In three experiments we demonstrate that if feedback assists participants to infer cue polarity then it can in fact be effective in nonmetric MCPL. Participants appeared to use cue polarity information to adopt a linear judgement strategy, even though the environment was nonlinear. The results reconcile the paradoxical contrast between metric and nonmetric MCPL and support previous findings of people's tendency to assume linearity and additivity in probabilistic cue learning.     

An Evaluation of a Parenting Class Curriculum for Parents of Young Children: <Emphasis Type="Italic">Parenting the Strong-Willed Child</Emphasis>

Young children with high levels of acting out behaviors present a challenge for families, caregivers, and the childcare system. The Parenting the Strong-Willed Child (PSWC) parenting class curriculum program is a 6-week, group based parent education program designed for parents of children with noncompliance problems (ages 2–8). The PSWC program was offered at no cost to parents enrolled in 8 Head Start centers, and parents were invited to participate in a program evaluation study. Seventy-one families enrolled in the study and completed at least one PSWC session. From pre- to post-test, parents reported significant improvements in both the frequency and intensity of child behavior problems. Parents also reported significant reductions in parenting stress, as well as improvements in their parenting behaviors, including a reduction in the use of lax discipline techniques and emotional reactivity in the context of discipline encounters. All improvements were sustained six months later. These preliminary results are encouraging, and point to the need for a more rigorous, controlled evaluation of the PSWC parenting class curriculum.     

Counsellor interpretations and the occurrence of in-session client change moments in non-dynamic psychotherapies

This study explored the relationship between therapist interpretations and optimal in-session client processes in 20 sessions conducted by exemplary psychotherapists of three different theoretical orientations: Client-Centred Therapy (CCT), Rational-Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT), and Gestalt/Existential Therapy (GT). The results indicated that interpretations were used with similar frequency across therapeutic approaches, but they were neither superior nor inferior to other interventions in relation to the occurrence of optimal in-session client processes. The results support the notion that interpretation is a commonly used therapist intervention and that different therapies accentuate different aspects of interpretation. Implications for psychotherapy integration are offered and the findings are discussed with reference to theory and clinical practice.